Post-Meetup: Women and the Canadian Context

These workshops that Toujours Rebelles provided really seem to fire us up. We talked for 3 hours again and only stopped because we had to!

In a nutshell, we rhymed off every oppression issue that we feel touches on our lives -fleshed them out, drew connections, relayed and imagined powerful responses.

Daniela commented that the broad scope was different from the more specific issues we usually tackle in our discussions. It is valuable to look at the bigger picture now and then. It reinforces our passion for feminism and solidarity and belief that it’s NEEDED.

I see the Canadian Context bit as being a bit wiggly. I mean, looking at the issues on that level hasn’t yet added a lot to my understanding or feeling for feminism. Yet, the surge of excitement imagining these issues taken up on a large scale – if we can expand our conversations, our ideas and support for one another across a freakin’ huge country – is where I see an immense value. In the last month, I haven’t seen much evidence of this coming together in the aftermath of the Toujours/Waves gathering but the fact that young women felt strongly enough about it to get themselves to it and the feeling that WAS present there really have me believing it’s possible.